All around the world, people have suffered through the lingering financial crises that have been hitting us all for several years in a row. We have also been hit by natural disasters, man-made tragedies, and upheaving (or not-so-upheaving) election cycles that have left some of us writhing in the aftermath of way too much politics.

All this makes the relatively small problems of my family look, well, relatively small. And yet, we’re all impacted by these events, as well as our own hardships. So, altogether, 2012 was a rather difficult year and I’m glad to see it go.

Now, it is 2013: Like every other year before it, 2013 is full of unknown possibilities. It could be worse than 2012, but it could much better. Of course, I’m hoping for the latter.

So, Happy New Year!!!

I hope we all can strive for the best of our possibilities and work cooperatively for a better world that all of us can enjoy together.